By Richard Escobedo
/ CBS News
What to know about Trump, Musk and USAID
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team has been given “read only” access to the Treasury Department’s federal payment system, and federal expenditures have not been affected, the Treasury said in a letter to Congress late Tuesday.
The letter, from Jonathan Blum, a Treasury official, said that a review of the Treasury’s Fiscal Service payment system has not caused “payments for obligations such as Social Security and Medicare to be delayed or re-routed.”
“Treasury has no higher obligation than managing the government’s finances on behalf of the American people, and its payments system is critical to that process,” the letter read.
Tom Krause — a technology executive who is a member of Musk’s DOGE team and is working on a review of the payment system — has also been granted a top secret security clearance, according to the letter.
“Mr. Krause is a longtime technology executive. His decades of experience in building companies and managing balance sheets as a chief financial officer are of great benefit to this review,” the letter reads. “In order to allow him to perform this function, he has been hired as an expert/consultant by the federal government and designated in a role commonly used across Administrations—a “special government employee” —pursuant to applicable law.”
Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern that access to the system could allow DOGE, which disburses nearly 90% of all federal payments, to restrict disbursement of federal funds.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, said that Blum’s letter raised more questions than answers.
“It asserts that a set of Treasury staff members have ‘read-only’ access but fails to answer questions about non-Treasury employees, like those working for Elon Musk and DOGE,” Warren said in a statement.
The Treasury’s letter came in response to a call from Senate Banking Committee Democrats, which includes Warren and Sen. Ron Wyden, for the Government Accountability Office “to investigate Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent’s decision to grant access to sensitive government payment systems to Elon Musk and other “Department of Government Efficiency” employees.”
DOGE is not a government department, but a task force established by Mr. Trump to find ways to cut federal spending.
